The Unbearable Lightness of Being
by SwordSkill
Summary: Or, The End of It All.


Edit: A correction in French.

**The Unbearable Lightness of Being**

The lady in red didn't like the way the clouds looked; they were giving every impression of a downpour and she hadn't brought an umbrella with her. She couldn't be bothered to run back and fetch one now.

She sat on the park bench watching a few pigeons squabble over a crust of bread. She was more than early. Punctuality was an old habit that had been drilled into her for a reason heavier than mere courtesy, but today her anticipation was exceptional. Today things were going to be dredged up, a thing she wasn't sure how she would find.

So she had decided to be more than early. Come with poise and preparation, or at least some semblance of it. Was she nervous? She had been wondering that since the bus ride to the park and decided that she was. Things would have changed, and there was always that initial awkwardness of reunion. She hoped it would only be initial. Too many things had been left unsaid. That was always a problem. That was always the problem.

She glanced at her watch. When she looked up, Kirika was standing there in front of her.

For a moment Mireille thought she was seeing things. It had been that long that she couldn't recognize flesh and bones from a memory that would leap out in the most inapproriate times to present itself. How many years...she didn't want to remember, but the number crept into her mind with a vengeance. Five years. Five years of irresponsibility? neglect? She didn't know. Somewhere along the way, things had just lain forgotten. Or ignored, either way, on the journey to move on.

And there was always the greeting to deal with. Do not say it. Do _not_ say it.

"_Salut_," she said, knowing that the awkardness had begun.

They never said that to each other before. They had been so used to each other's presence that "hi" always seemed superfluous. But not today, it seemed.

"_Salut_," Kirika returned, taking a seat next to her.

She hadn't changed, and it was true, but Mireille didn't want to lapse into another cliche. They would start talking about the weather afterwards if she did, and that would be unbearable. It would be insanely difficult to suggest what she wanted to say by some circular discussion of the possibility of rain. It had to end today.

When Mireille felt that she had given Kirika enough silence to say something and that the gift was already outstaying its welcome, she said, "Well, fancy meeting you here."

She heard something like a small chuckle from Kirika. "It's good to see you too, Mireille."

Here was surprise. Strength and confidence. Humor? When they had first met, Kirika was a girl barely out of a school uniform. Now that they had given each other a chance to change, Kirika had reached the age Mireille was when the whole business began. Perhaps strength and confidence drawn from discovering that the world was a comical tragedy came with growing older. Perhaps it would be easier now. Mireille had always felt that she had lost something along the way, something brash and youthful that fueled her and made her proud. Royal Corsican blood in her veins, she had always assumed, secretly pleased. Now she was more aware that last chances weren't called last for nothing and that pride could only get her so far before she began resenting it. Or, as she had lately began reflecting, that she had turned "soft."

"I was never really certain what happened when we parted," Kirika said, jumping to the heart of matter, Mireille thought rather indignantly, without any proper warning. "It just happened so quickly, with the perfect reasons."

"Kirika, you'll have to hold on for a moment." Mireille organized her thoughts and looked at her for the first time. "You're a little different and it's giving me a bit of a shock. And I don't know what you mean by 'perfect reasons.' Technically neither of us needed to provide a reason to leave, and we didn't. I wanted to study, not leave, but me studying entailed having to leave. You...well..." The complete lack of correspondence for five years was another matter and Mireille didn't have the presence of mind to multitask at the moment.

"I continued doing it for a while," said Kirika. "Going solo on jobs. And if it makes you happy, and I know it will, I didn't have an easier time without you."

Mireille stared at her. The bluntness, though refreshing and certainly moving the conversation to a direction, astounded her nonetheless.

"I nearly lost an arm and more," Kirika was saying, until Mireille placed a hand on her shoulder, forcing her to stop and look at her inquiringly.

"Kirika. You're not...quiet anymore."

There was another silence, one of realization now. And maybe of sadness, Mireille was willing to think. Five years had been long. Then Kirika looked sideways, making a quick sound like a small sigh of resignation. "I guess things have changed."

"I'm not against change. I actually think that it's the only way to go. It's just that I'm a little more surprised than I had originally planned."

"You planned?"

"Well, originally would have given myself credit for anyway."

Kirika laughed a little and Mireille felt herself smiling. The clouds had disappeared and the sky had begun to turn blue again. It was going to a lovely spring afternoon, the kind that she could only have in France. She gave Kirika's knee a tap. "So what's been going on with you?"

Kirika raised her eyebrows and smiled. "Well, like I said, I continued doing it for some time, maybe a year or so, until I thought that I needed a change."

"Can you still shoot like a Mexican bean on crack and get all of them right?"

"If that's what you prefer to call it, yes, I still could the last time. I haven't done it for a while. I've been putting all my time on the bakeshop."

"_Tu as une boulangerie_!"

"Well, it's not mine, exactly. I'm a partner with a guy I met whom I helped establish a bakery with an investment, from the money we had split between us."

"And how is this 'guy'?"

"He's fifty years old, Mireille."

"All right, fine, if you don't want to be more enthusiastic about it. Where is this bakery?"

"Close to the apartment. It's on the same street."

There was a pause as Mireille leaned against the bench. "I haven't been there for a while."

"I know. You should drop by sometimes. Business is doing very well."

"I should." There was another pause, but by now Mireille knew that they had passed the stage of awkwardness. Much of the tension had gone quicker than she imagined. Admittedly she felt a little disappointed and rather foolish for having worried so much, but it was best this way.

"So how is university, Mireille?"

"Well, I bridged to the master's program during the last year of my _licence_. I've graduated, actually, with a master's in international relations."

Kirika's eyes were wide open. "Mireille! _Félicitations_! I'm sorry I couldn't have been there!"

"Oh, don't worry about it. _Ce n'est pas la fin du monde, non_?" She laughed. "I'd rather find the whole thing very low key, to tell the truth. For someone who forged her _baccalauréat_ results to get into university, of course, I'm not particularly so proud. Anyway, you didn't know about it in the first place."

A boy walking his dog passed them and disappeared into the curve in the road. "I wish you wrote to me an email or something to tell me about it, still."

I wish we wrote at all, thought Mireille, but kept quiet. There was no room for regrets now, not when things were going so well for both of us. It was odd discovering that life was still possible without the other. A little unnerving, and maybe even a little insulting, but it was much better than living forever in the first week of loss.

"What are your plans now?" asked Kirika.

"I'm not so sure yet. I wanted to become a diplomat, but I think my history around the world has pretty much shot that." We'll always be living under the guillotine, Kirika. I am so sorry you got into this. "Maybe a consulting job as a market research analyst. Or I could go into foreign affairs. I've submitted a number of applications and I've got some interviews lined up now."

"They sound promising."

"They are. We're doing quite well, aren't we?"

Kirika nodded. Then she hesitated before saying, "To be honest, I thought I wouldn't. Initially I thought I had become too used to what we had and I'd never be suitable for anything else. I wouldn't call it exactly a fun time, but it did earn us money, didn't it?"

"It certainly did." Mireille shielded her eyes from the sun. "Do you regret anything?"

"From that time?"

"There's really no other time to speak of," and that was the closest thing Mireille dared to mention about the past.

"No, you're right. And no." Kirika's eyes were directed elsewhere now. "I don't regret anything. Anything that we could have had the power to change anyway."

In a way, both of them had always been so fatalistic, Mireille thought. There was only one way their life could be and their circumstances didn't offer a choice. Perhaps that was why she had decided to study in the first place, to start anew, to get a life with choices, even if it meant leaving Kirika. In fact, leaving Kirika was crucial to that. Now she was here to see if it had been worth it, and given how things were going, nothing seemed to matter so much anymore. Perhaps, in the end, humans were really stronger than they thought.

"_Ce n'est pas la fin du monde_," Kirika repeated, and Mireille just nodded. "For many things."

Then in one sudden moment, Kirika was a teenager again, reclusive, attentive, inquiring. "Does it get any easier?"

"No," replied Mireille, uncrossing her legs. "It gets more complicated and you begin to wonder what it is you really want."

"What do you want, Mireille?"

What do I want?

"I want an impossible world where I can have my cake and eat it," she said.

"Or you can just drop by the bakery and have a cheesecake and a cup of coffee."

The calm of four o'clock came by and took a seat between them. Mireille found herself returning to that state she disliked, the one that made her wish that such a moment would last longer than it should, because it brought along the feeling that she would rather not enjoy it for fear of eventually losing it.

"I have to go," said Kirika, getting up. "I'm going to be interviewing some applicants for clerking in the bakeshop." She stood for a moment looking at Mireille. "And that invitation's always open. You know the way. It would be good publicity too, that Mireille Bouquet, _Ministère des Affaires étrangères_, had an expresso here."

Mireille laughed despite herself as she stood up, tightening her scarf.

"Call me if you want to drop by or to meet again," offered Kirika.

"Thanks." Both of them stood in silence until Mireille asked, "How much does your business partner know about you?"

"Nothing much. That I went to high school here and I have my inheritance in a trust fund in Japan."

"That you invested into his bakery, just like that."

"It seemed like a good deal to him. He didn't argue."

Time to say goodbye. Five years ago, both of them were in the bank, terminating their joint account and making separate ones. It had been a stony silence, though they had parted with the greatest silent admiration and apprehension. That accounted much for the lack of contact that followed, until Mireille rang up her old apartment.

"Sometimes I still think of the old days," said Kirika as they walked along the path leading to the road. "Sometimes I even wonder how things would be if you hadn't gone to study."

"So do I. But you're in a good place now, you've made a little home for yourself, and you know where you stand and where you're going. And I do too." Mireille looked up at the foliage making the sunlight come in shafts. "That's more than what other people could ever ask for."

They reached the bus stop at the road. No one else was waiting. "Well," said Mireille, taking a deep breath as they stood facing each other. "It's been great seeing you again. I don't know why it took so long."

"It's been wonderful seeing you too, Mireille." Kirika's eyes were still as soulful as ever. "We'll see each other again, right? I'll give you a call soon."

When Kirika's bus came, Mireille turned around to sit on the waiting bench. For a while she seemed lost again in a world with no exit, the one she had been born into. A traffic light across the road turned green. Then she took a marble-white envelope from her purse. It was addressed to Mireille Bernier from a company in New York interested to have a graduate from the University of Sorbonne become part of their French market analysis team. The envelope was worn from having the letter taken in and out of it.

Her bus came and she hastily placed the letter back into the envelope and got up.

"_Bonjour, Mademoiselle Bernier!_" The bus driver grinned at her through bushy eyebrows and beard.

"_Bonjour, Françoise!_" she returned as she inserted her bus pass. "How's your day been?"

"Ah, same old, just driving around the city. Very boring, but it doesn't matter, it keeps the wife happy." The doors gave a pneumatic wheeze as they closed. "_Et vous_?"

"Perfect," said Mireille as she found a seat and the bus began to roll.

**end**

**Notes:**

**_The Unbearable Lightness of Being_** - (Czech language: Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí) a novel written by Milan Kundera in 1984...According to Kundera, "being" is full of "unbearable lightness" because each of us has only one life to live: "Einmal ist Keinmal" ("once is never", i.e., "what happened once might as well have never happened at all"). Therefore, each life is ultimately insignificant; every decision ultimately does not matter. Since decisions do not matter, they are "light": they do not tie us down. But at the same time, the insignificance of our decisions - our lives, or being - is unbearable. Hence, "the unbearable lightness of being." (Wikipedia)

**Ce n'est pas la fin du monde** - (French) "It's not the end of the world."


End file.
